PSN Still Recovering From Hacker Attack

The hack attack that happened around Christmas to both the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network have supposedly subsided. However, Sony is still having trouble getting PSN back up and running in working order.

Over on the official Ask PlayStation Twitter account, gamers are still asking Sony when the PlayStation Network will be back up in full capacity following the hack attacks from a few days ago.

The Twitter account has been repeatedly sending out reassurances and notices about the status of PSN, with the account mentioning...

A lot of people were shocked at how both Xbox Live and PSN went down so easily on Christmas Eve and throughout Christmas day. The attacks prevented players from logging in and playing any PlayStation or Xbox games online throughout Christmas.

I imagine there were a lot of angry kids and parents who bought a ton of games over the holidays but found out that they couldn't access or play a lot of them because the servers were down. Interestingly enough, Nintendo and their handheld and home consoles were left alone in the cyber attacks, meaning anyone who bought them some Super Smash Bros or Mario Kart 8 didn't have to worry about not being able to play online.

The attacks, however, only came to an end because of the unlikely intervention from MegaUpload owner Kim Dotcom. The file-sharing kingpin promised the hackers some free premium access to his site in exchange for them not taking down Xbox Live or PSN again. How well this uneasy truce will last is completely up in the air, but I'm sure most gamers are just happy to be able to go back online and play their games... well, some of them.

As noted by the Ask PlayStation account...

@FalontameLP We are still working to restore full network services for all platforms. Thank you for your patience.

According to the alleged hacking group that took down the services, they claimed that it would be a while before PSN came back because they were suffering from the after effects of the attack.

There's no way to know for sure if this is what's really happening or if there's some other stuff going on behind the scenes, but Sony and Microsoft have both been very quiet about the details behind their services going offline.

One of the odd things about this most recent attack is that there was a warning that went out at the very beginning of December warning that there would be a Christmas attack. However, instead of safeguarding against these measures it appears as if the warning went unheeded.

Hopefully Kim Dotcom's intermediary methods to keep the hackers at bay will allow Microsoft and Sony some time to find new ways to deal with today's age of cyber-security. It was previously explained how DDoS attacks work and why there's nothing most companies can do to stop them, but it seems strange that billion-dollar companies have no resolve to prevent these kind of attacks. Maybe that will all change in the near future.